This story appears in the May 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. A few years ago I was on an assignment in India. I had a day off, so I went to the Mullick Ghat flower market in Kolkata.

The traders of New Market have written to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) requesting the authorities to keep the roads around the market, now heavily encroached by hawkers, free ahead of Eid, ...